Here are 5 Great Reasons why YOU should Set up a Blog

1. Low cost – Probably one of my favorite things about blogs – after setting up an expensive website that took two months and several thousand to build or doing it myself and having it look like crap,  blogs are one of the cheapest and most effective marketing tools – in terms of money.  For just a few dollars a month you can register your domain name and host your own blog.  Set up costs are low, as are maintenance costs.  And most people do not need to hire a developer –ever – to set up and maintain a blog.  Even if you do need some tech help, there are many reasonable alternatives out there for blog development
2. Connect – A blog’s format is tailor-made to create a connection and conversation with an audience.  The format of daily posts can read more like journal entries rather than marketing pieces and most readers allow some leeway when it comes to grammar and phrasing.  Now this doesn’t mean you have to get all confessional in a blog – I seldom do, but I certainly appreciate the informal tone and the ability to experiment.  But don’t forget that a lot of blogs – especially ones where one of the purposes is to sell something, should be informative – but you can be down home information.
3. A Two Way Conversation – Add in the ability for readers to comment in real time on your posts – and you to answer them back, and you have a true “conversation” going with your audience
4. Public Relations and Media Exposure – Journalists will call you -yes it’s true – if you have a decent informative blog and can be seen as an expert in something you might a call from a journalist asking to be part of a story.  Now more likely you will have to scout out for story ideas (try HARO.com) and pitch yourself to a journalist – but trust me – pointing to your blog and all of your readers commenting like crazy will really raise your cred factor.   a
5. Search Engine Optimization – most blog platforms are inherently search engine optimized –this means that they take care of turning your content into a format that search engines like and can find – it’s so much easier with a blog than with almost any other website platform.  This means that if people are searching for the topics you write about – you will be found.  And the great thing about search engine traffic is that it is free – yup – these are free visitors that might be interested in what you’re selling, promoting or writing about.  Make sure you download the All in One SEO plugin for Wordpress and add that to really pump up your SEO.

Blogging Tips

When you first start blogging you might wonder if you need to spend the money and host it yourself or if you can just get a free blog from wordpress or blogger.  Don’t.  Always, always, host it yourself.  Here’s why

Many of the free blogging platforms won’t let your own ads, promote affiliate products or drive traffic to your blog via PPC.  That’s means it will be harder for you to make money directly from your blog.  Which maybe isn’t your goal if you just want to share your life story or promote your services.  But at some point you might re-think it.  Start smart from the beginning.

Using your own domain name will make it shorter and easier to remember.  If not you will wind up with something like this: http://www.mycoolsite.com.wordpress.com vs the short and sweet www.mycoolsite.com.  Which would you rather type in – which would your customers and visitors?

Also, at any time if your blog hosted on blogger or wordpress could be taken down and removed – for any reason – ok so you they probably think you violated some terms and conditions.  Maybe you did, maybe you did – but the last thing you want is for your blog to disappear.  That doesn’t happen when your blog is your own.

And of course, probably the best reason to host your own blog – as you blog you’re building up content on your site that points to you.  This is good for SEO or Search Engine Optimization.  SEO basically means that your blog is well designed, set up and written to be found by search engines.  So when someone goes to a search engine and types in a question or a topic that relates to your blog, the search engine will process your content and present one of your pages in the (hopefully) top search results.  This is a lot easier to do when your content is on your own domain.  You will be able to build the authority and traffic of your blog.  If you’re hosting on a blog extension, well you’ll just be promoting them.

And finally, hosting your own blog just looks more professional. It says you have invested time and money in your blog and business and that you’re ready to be taken seriously.

Win this Gift Card

This is where I reveal all the things I’ve learned building my media empire for tween girls and their parents at GirlMogul Media

… I am inviting you, my fellow launchers to ask me any question about blogging, have a chance at winning a $50 Amazon Gift Card and download my F*R*E*E Blogging Guide- Profitable Results Blogging…

So ask your questions, download the guide and I’ll pick one lucky and random poster to be the lucky winner of a $50 AMAZON gift certificate – good for just about anything in the world…

What are good questions?  Maybe you’re wondering which platform to use, if you need to be a techie, is blogging even right for you, can you make money blogging, will it take too much time, can you land a book deal from blogging, how to re-invent an old blog into a traffic powerhouse, does the world need another mommy blogger  — whatever your question is, just name it and I’ll post back an answer in a timely fashion….

And once you post – go here to download your free report – Power Up Your Blog – How to Make Your Blog a Profit Machine

Questions  – - I’m listening….

At a very basic level, a blog is an online diary. The term blog is actually short for “weblog” and it is a chronological series of entries or posts.

Post which used to be text based content only now include audio or video as well.

The first people to truly appreciate the business power of blogs were online marketers. Always looking out for ways to grow their business and connect with their audience, they grabbed onto this user friendly, and search engine friendly, technology and added it to their marketing mix.

So How Can a Business Use a Blog?

• Connect with Your Audience – A blog gives you a chance to connect with your audience on a personal and consistent way.  Your fans can use RSS Technology, a cool tool that gives readers the ability to subscribe to content putting your message and information in their email inbox or on their reader.
• To Drive  Valuable Web Traffic – With every blog post, through the power of the blog platform you get optimized content – that means that search engines can find it easily.  So if you’re writing about things people want to read about you’re bound to get traffic.   Search engines love blogs and you can add plug-ins and widgets that capitalize on SEO tactics and social networking strategies. More traffic should equal more profits
• Increase Awareness – In addition to your current marketing mix, which may include articles, advertising, direct mail, autoresponders, and social networking, (We have more about these strategies in other blog posts), a blog increases overall awareness of your company.  This might led to partnership opportunities, guest blogging spots and more customers.

Blogging is a great way to build a business whether it’s a standalone blog or as part of your business website.

Just so you know a little about me – I run blogs in a number of different areas or niches, from parenting, to fitness, to self-improvement and more.  My blogs have done different things for me – some of them make money directly from advertising and product sales, while others build my email list and have built platform and gotten me in the door for talks about a book.

So whether you’re looking to create a blog to help you grow your platform and your email list, and sell more of you, or you want to start a blog specifically to make money from advertising and product sales (yours or other people’s) then I have tips, strategies, resources (yes  -  I have spent a lot of money trying different things and I know what works), plus answers for you.

So to help celebrate the launch – I am opening up the floor to you – ask any question you have about blogging in the comments below.  I’ll answer. 

And TWO Lucky winners will receive a free blog strategy consultation from me (worth over $299).  We’ll discuss your current business (if you have one), why you think you need a blog, and then go over strategies to optimize your blog for your goals – whether it’s platform building or cash generating.  Includes a complimentary phone session and a written report, plus a one follow up strategy session – email or phone.

So go ahead – you have nothing to lose  – post your questions below!

There are basically two types of bloggers in the world - reporters and experts - and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it's hard for reporters to become experts, but it's easy for experts to report).

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc� experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something – experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts – there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry – the Internet marketing industry – not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche – Internet marketing – and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things – email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it – making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) – your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion – your stories – and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/go.php?offer=skinnymom&pid=1

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else's blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that's about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction" which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.


Top 10 Tips
10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn't news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name -  If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that's the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you've done a good job!).


7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.


Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.


6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else's blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.


This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.


5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.


To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com


3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it's so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it's worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!


2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. - This is another tip that doesn't bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it's worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.


How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.


1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I've listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won't stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.


I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I've put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it's certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.


This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.


To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link: www.BlogMastermind.com

First off, a blog takes a decent amount of time – you need to find a way to post regularly – daily to begin with and then several times a week.  Plus you’ll spend time marketing you blog – much like you would your business.  And if your blog isn’t working gor you – in a business sense, then it may wind up that blogging is just a huge time sucker for you – time that could be better spent making phone calls, going on sales calls, investing in direct advertising.
So why then, do people love blogs?  Well for one, setting up a blog is free or nearly so (as an experienced blogger, I recommend spending a few bucks and investing in your own domain name and hosting).  Blog platforms like Wordpress (my favorite) and Blogger are designed so that when you make an update they get picked up rapidly by the search engines – blogs are designed for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

What is blogging – blogging is when you use a blogging platform (like Wordpress and Blogger) as the content management system on your blog – this just means that a blog is how you add new content and images to your blog  – in the form of pages, posts, and images.

Now that we have taken the time to explain blogging, in our next post we’ll talk about the questions you should ask yourself about blogging before you start – like can you make money blogging – the answer is absolutely yes – but you still need to evaluate your goals for it.

Before you begin brainstorming possibel markets to target with your internet business, stip and consoder the following:

1. What are you interested in?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about?
4. What are people always coming to you for advice about?

If you stat your business based on something you know and like you’ll enjoy it more, will stick with it through the tough times, and at the end of the day, truly enjoy it more – while it pays you money.  What could be better than that?

And it will be easier to start you business on something you already know, rather than trying to become an expert (though that’s not too hard either…)

Sometimes I hear that moms think they don’t have any skills or interests…or just their kids.  That’s baloney.  You used to have skills and interests way before you had kids – remember that time…and you still do – they may be new, or it may time to dust off an old hobby.  Are you an expert on getting your kid to eat his or her vegetables, clean her room or get straight A’s or more time on the playing field.  Can you feed a family of 6 on 50 bucks a week… guess what – people want to know how to do that and they might  be willing to pay you for it.

So start with this:

1. Consider your interests, hobbies and areas of expertise.  Think about your life experiences – all the jobs you have ever had  even the unpaid ones, and the volunteer work and the hobbies you’ve tried.  All the times you have helped people and enjoyed it.  Keep a notebook handy and keep adding to the list over a day or two.

Our Next post will be list of questions you can ask yourself to help find your interests and passions – stay tuned.

1. Start with your passions and interests – this makes sense because you’re going to be spending a lot of time promoting this business, which will involve a lot of writing about the subject – you better like it.  And, if you have a passion for it, you can probably bet other people do too – add the power of the internet and you have enough reach to make some money

2. Look for a problem people are trying to solve – in an earlier post we talked about why people use the internet, and research is key – whether it’s to solve a problem like curing acne or which game system to buy.  Your goal is to find enough people who have a problem and then help them find a solution (one they’re willing to pay for).

• Here are some examples of niche products:
• People trying to find all natural cures for acne
• People trying to find pet products for ferrets
• People who want to make crafts with dried flowers
• People who want to figure out which digital camera to buy

One final thing to remember – there is a lot of free content on the internet and to a certain extent, people expect information to be free on the internet.  They don’t necessarily go online to start buying first.   You have to make sure your niche market will have enough people who are searching for solutions and who will be willing to pay to solve the problem.